Mass Effect Legendary Edition

[Eighthours]

I'd forgotten just how good the start of Mass Effect 2 is! And how much of an upgrade the dialogue scenes are, in terms of Shephard usually saying a bit more than just asking a 5 word question, and also how there are different camera angles, zoom levels and tracking shots to increase visual interest. It makes ME1 look so static in comparison.

[Jamie John]

I'm past the half-way mark in ME2 now and am finding it a bit of a slog, to be honest. The interactions between characters are still interesting, but the narrative slows to a halt while you're just going around getting the squad together. It seems odd that The Collectors just wait about while you're off headhunting people and solving their problems.

 

The biggest issue, however, is the repetitive nature of the combat. In general, the gunplay is much improved compared with ME1, but the lack of variety in weapons and the way you approach different situations is really grating on me now. Maybe it's my fault for choosing the sniper class, but I'm finding it's not a game that I want to play for any longer than 45 minutes or so in one sitting, just because every mission plays out the same way.

 

Thankfully, I've been dipping in and out using remote play on my phone, playing it like a handheld game, and that seems to be a good way to get through the missions I'm up to at the moment.

[Isaac]

On 18/06/2021 at 14:43, Jamie John said:

The second game is better in pretty much every respect, especially the combat, which is actually playable (if a little clunky by modern standards). I think your enjoyment of all of the games overall depends on how much you invest in the story and characters, however - the conversations and the drama of it all are far and away the best part of the game.

 

I don't know - I think the climax of the first game is the best bit of the entire trilogy, story-wise.

 

ME2 and ME3 both have terrible endings, whereas the last 90 minutes of the first game was probably one of the best videogaming narrative moments I'd ever had at the time.

[Gambit]

And that's ME3 done.

 

Spoiler

I took great delight in inviting Allers onto the ship then kicking her off. She died according to a news report I overheard on the Citedal lol.

 

I was confused by certain bits I don't remember happening when I first played it. Apparently I missed something to save Miranda and Kasumi. The latter of which I couldn't even remember dying till I saw her name on the memorial board on the Normandy. I guess you could change the outcomes of certain things more than I thought.

 

 

On 30/06/2021 at 14:33, Isaac said:

 

I don't know - I think the climax of the first game is the best bit of the entire trilogy, story-wise.

 

ME2 and ME3 both have terrible endings, whereas the last 90 minutes of the first game was probably one of the best videogaming narrative moments I'd ever had at the time.

 

What? The final mission of ME2 is one of the greatest ever made. The action, the score, the cut scenes. Epic.

[Wiper]

ME2's suicide mission aspect is brilliant; the actual final boss is hilariously naff, however, and the actual battle arenas are a lot less compelling than the forward momentum of ME1's final dash to Saren.

 

Both ending sequences are highlights of the series, but I do prefer ME1's overall.

 

(also, that credits theme )

[Isaac]

2 hours ago, Gambit said:

And that's ME3 done.

 

  Reveal hidden contents

I took great delight in inviting Allers onto the ship then kicking her off. She died according to a news report I overheard on the Citedal lol.

 

I was confused by certain bits I don't remember happening when I first played it. Apparently I missed something to save Miranda and Kasumi. The latter of which I couldn't even remember dying till I saw her name on the memorial board on the Normandy. I guess you could change the outcomes of certain things more than I thought.

 

 

 

What? The final mission of ME2 is one of the greatest ever made. The action, the score, the cut scenes. Epic.

 

The final boss of ME2 is such a huge fuck up that it basically destroys the entire ending set piece.

 

Spoiler

The fucking Terminator?! They went with the fucking Terminator?!

 

An advanced AI race from thousands of light years away that periodically wipes out all sentient life in the galaxy is building a fucking Terminator?

 

The first game ends with a battle against a rogue agent who turns out to be more grey than pure evil, and actually an object of pity, followed by a series of decisions that affect the fate of everyone. 

 

The second game (despite the brilliance of the suicide mission up until the boss fight) decides to end with a fucking Terminator boss fight ripped out of a Contra game. That was stupidly easy too. And was completely at odds with the entire artistic direction of the series up until that point.

 

It was the most fluffed ending Bioware had done until ME3.

[Fargo]

Finished ME2 yesterday and started ME3 this morning. I know ME2 like the back of my hand but only ever played ME3 the once. The third game was really influenced by that whole Gears of War dude bro 360 era, encapsulated perfectly by the fact you can’t even holster your weapon!

but also the character of James, and the sexualised female characters. I don’t remember much at all so it’s like a new ME and despite some misgivings about the direction it went in I’m really looking forward to playing more. 

[ryodi]

I'm a good way into ME3 and the things that annoyed me originally still annoy me now. Apart from not being able to holster your weapon the quests and missions picked up by overhearing people that you complete by talking to them but the camera not cutting to them talking with instead everyone's necks twisted awkwardly using the games normal camera being my biggest annoyance. I'd also completely forgotten that Joker hadn't seen the PSA.

 

Spoiler

 

 

It's fine but the what I assume is an accurate representation of diplomacy with Shephard turning into an errand boy to get everyone to help defeat the reapers doesn't make it feel disjointed as you rush around the galaxy doing odd jobs and lacks the focus of preparing to go through the Omega 4 Relay from ME2. 

[Matt Defis]

I wonder how many people will jump into Andromeda after this and give it a fair shake and realise it's nowhere near as bad as was made out.

[Dudley]

Certainly playing the trilogy is reinforcing my opinion that ME:A is the 2nd best in the series and I'm think I might be being harsh on it there, might have to replay it to check.

 

14 hours ago, ryodi said:

missions picked up by overhearing people

 

I got one of these but heard absolutely none of the conversation.

 

I also hate it leaving missions in your log it knows you can't complete and it not updating missions like ME1,2 and literally every other game with missions did.

[JoeK]

14 hours ago, ryodi said:

I'm a good way into ME3 and the things that annoyed me originally still annoy me now. Apart from not being able to holster your weapon the quests and missions picked up by overhearing people that you complete by talking to them but the camera not cutting to them talking with instead everyone's necks twisted awkwardly using the games normal camera being my biggest annoyance. I'd also completely forgotten that Joker hadn't seen the PSA.

 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 

It's fine but the what I assume is an accurate representation of diplomacy with Shephard turning into an errand boy to get everyone to help defeat the reapers doesn't make it feel disjointed as you rush around the galaxy doing odd jobs and lacks the focus of preparing to go through the Omega 4 Relay from ME2. 

 

That right there annoys me an awful lot. They're the little quality of life things that would have made a difference for me and they chose to not bother. I completely understand that they devoted most of the budget to getting Mass Effect up to snuff, but I'm not sure I'd have made the same choices at all. Mass Effect still has fucking awful combat, can be terribly dull in places, and you play the sodding thing to get a really cool story going on. God knows why anyone would bother not to just stick the thing on easy, rattle through it so you can get to the meat and potatoes of ME2 really. 

 

 

[Dudley]

I'm halfway through ME3 and I hadn't noticed the weapon holstering thing.

[aubergine]

I just finished my first insanity run of the trilogy back to back and despite loads of issues with how the overall story is dealt with and gameplay changes etc I was happy to find that I still loved it, as said before, even the mako exploration. I can’t think of another series of games where I actually like the characters and the setting quite as much as in these.

Given that it’s the direction the games increasingly move in I might be in the minority but, having just gone through them and spending nearly every other beat in combat in the power wheel, I would kill for an option to ditch the 3rd person cover shooter trappings altogether and just have a zoomed-out ‘tactical’ view and control in combat.
 

Regarding ME2/ME3 and the Collectors 

Spoiler

does anyone know if they were originally going to have more significance in the overall story of the trilogy and ME3 just didn’t follow up on it?

Whilst obviously there’s a lot of issues when considering the overall plot etc and how it’s handled between each game, particularly in the move from 2 to 3, the Collectors just seem like a dead end story-wise that didn’t really do much other than giving Shepard another notch on the powerful-baddies-I’ve-killed belt.

 

Your choice at the end to destroy the base or keep it seems to have no real effect in the 3rd game beyond some dialogue bits and pieces - Cerberus are no better or worse off regardless of what you do. The overall mission, of stopping the Collectors, doesn’t have much consequence for the Reaper invasion as it seems like they would have been doing that anyway, they just don’t have their naff Terminator Reaper kicking things off..

 

[Harsin]

https://gear.bioware.com/collections/pillows

 

 

[Chadruharazzeb]

14.5hrs into ME3 and I've still only got five squadmates? Aw jeez, Rick. 

[Alex W.]

On 06/07/2021 at 14:56, Harsin said:

https://gear.bioware.com/collections/pillows

 

 

 

[Dudley]

I'm sure the Citadel DLC is going to get good, and at the end of the first "main" mission it's showing signs of it.

 

But my god that first mission is pure shit.  Massive difficulty spike and worse, an uneven one because if you don't have good biotics you're fucked.  Literally no ammo refills in the first half, bugs in the location tracking and the bizarre assumption that what Mass Effect needed was to be a stealth game with none of the mechanics of a stealth game.

 

Just weird.

[Alex W.]

I don't remember that section giving me much trouble at all - I was thoroughly committed to being a pistols-only Engineer. I do remember being extremely bad at the stealth.

[Dudley]

Especially in the first sections it’s the combination of shit all ammo and their six grenades at once policy.

[aubergine]

It’s not a good solution but if you repeatedly die in that section they slowly increase the amount of ammo and grenades you start with.

[Jamie John]

I'm having an issue in ME2 where a bar of pixels appears down the right hand-side of the screen. It only appears when I'm talking to someone in game and the camera zooms in - if I'm just waking about or watching a cut scene it disappears. You can see it in this screenshot:

 

 

Spoiler

 

Anyone else got this? It's definitely the game, not my TV, as it doesn't appear anywhere else and even shows up if I'm playing via remote play.

 

I'm finding the game in general to be pretty buggy. None of the achievements seem to be popping on screen, despite unlocking in the background. Occasionally the lip sync will be out and I'll have to restart. The playtime counter is all over the place - sometimes it says about 30 hours, which is what I'd expect, while other times it says 120 hours. I've had invisible enemies, invisible NPCs, characters clipping through walls, audio issues, enemy AI occasionally just shitting the bed entirely and not responding to anything while I stand there and shoot it. It's a bit rubbish, really.

 

I'm up to the Omega relay now so I'm going to finish this, but I'm not going to jump straight into 3 by any means until there's an update.

[Dudley]

4 hours ago, aubergine said:

It’s not a good solution but if you repeatedly die in that section they slowly increase the amount of ammo and grenades you start with.

 

Hah.  I'm not sure if that counts as good design or the admission the previous design was bad.

[Dudley]

2 hours ago, Jamie John said:

I'm having an issue in ME2 where a bar of pixels appears down the right hand-side of the screen. It only appears when I'm talking to someone in game and the camera zooms in - if I'm just waking about or watching a cut scene it disappears. You can see it in this screenshot:

 

 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

Anyone else got this? It's definitely the game, not my TV, as it doesn't appear anywhere else and even shows up if I'm playing via remote play.

 

I'm finding the game in general to be pretty buggy. None of the achievements seem to be popping on screen, despite unlocking in the background. Occasionally the lip sync will be out and I'll have to restart. The playtime counter is all over the place - sometimes it says about 30 hours, which is what I'd expect, while other times it says 120 hours. I've had invisible enemies, invisible NPCs, characters clipping through walls, audio issues, enemy AI occasionally just shitting the bed entirely and not responding to anything while I stand there and shoot it. It's a bit rubbish, really.

 

I'm up to the Omega relay now so I'm going to finish this, but I'm not going to jump straight into 3 by any means until there's an update.

 

I've played 90% of the 3 by this point. The only ones of these I've seen on Xbox One (and then Series) are the playtime which is indeed completely broken and 2 instance of broken AI that led to them being alive off the "Play area". Both were killable though.

 

I did have an audio issue once, the one time I tried to play it while copying stuff off External HDD to the internal when I first got the series.

[Jamie John]

19 minutes ago, Dudley said:

 

I've played 90% of the 3 by this point. The only ones of these I've seen on Xbox One (and then Series) are the playtime which is indeed completely broken and 2 instance of broken AI that led to them being alive off the "Play area". Both were killable though.

 

I did have an audio issue once, the one time I tried to play it while copying stuff off External HDD to the internal when I first got the series.

 

I'm thinking I might reinstall it and see if t he that sorts anything. I'll just have to be careful not to delete my save...

[df0]

Can I have a Krogan duvet cover please.

[Chadruharazzeb]

Wtf is with this game? Just got to a point where Shep went into her quarters and could then summon a procession of people up to the room who all wanted to have sex. Weird, man. 

[ryodi]

ME3 done. Overall I enjoyed playing the trilogy again and taking my time to do everything meant I enjoyed ME3 a lot more than I did originally when I completed it before any of the DLC was released and only revisited it to play the Citadel Party which is one of the highpoints of the series. The ending still leaves me disappointed but I can't think of any other way you could end a trilogy like this. 
 

EDIT: I also completely forgot that ME3 had turret sections. Which have always been terrible, don’t fit with Mass Effect at all and I’m glad have fallen out of fashion. 

[Dudley]

Having finished the Citadel DLC it's got 2 of the worst 3 missions in the entire trilogy combined with a big pile of absolute best.

 

It's very weird.

[Fargo]

12 hours ago, ryodi said:

 

EDIT: I also completely forgot that ME3 had turret sections. Which have always been terrible, don’t fit with Mass Effect at all and I’m glad have fallen out of fashion. 

still playing through ME3 myself but so much of it seems to have been inspired by the shooters of the time like Gears in particular but also uncharted 

[Dudley]

I think the biggest reason people hate ME3's ending is that the gameplay for the entire last hour is "Walk long distances at a slow pace with the run button disabled" and the bits that aren't are "Excessively long conversation with a git".